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Report blasts Black for 'looting' Hollinger

CTV.ca News Staff

A new report slams Conrad Black and other controlling shareholders of Hollinger International for "self-righteous, and aggressive looting'" to a tune of more than $400 million US over a seven-year period to satisfy their "ravenous appetite for cash".

The report by a special committee, formed in 2003 to examine allegations of duty breaches by the newspaper publisher's international board, was released to the public Tuesday.

"Not once or twice, but on dozens of occasions Hollinger was victimized by its controlling shareholders as they transferred to themselves and their affiliates more than $400 million in the last seven years," the committee said in the opening pages of its 500-page report.

It says that the $400 million allocated by the company's former CEO Black and former chief operating officer David Radler amounted to 95.2 per cent of Hollinger's net profit from 1997-2003.